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ALIAS · (01-10-2021)

1A: The Expanse

The void.

Vast.

Expansive.

Indefinite.

A cold rock streaks through the emptiness.

No atmosphere; no gravity; no life.

Nothing.

Through it – the nothing – the rock careens on.

Aeons have passed and the journey continues.

The rock speeds past cosmic remnants – its peers at the seed of time.

Galaxies forged in the heat of the young universe. Gatherings of stars trapped in each other’s gravitational pull.

Dark orders, all consuming.

Savage bloodhounds, torn asunder.

Vigilant warriors of the cosmic realm.

Stellar collisions and supernovas.

The rock observes.

Life emergent.

Life destroyed.

Truth.

Death.

~~~

The man is frozen upon his bed. He dreams of the Universe.

~~~

The rock speeds on.

1B: Doomed Aftermath

“Disaster. Total, unmitigated disaster.

I am doomed.

We are doomed.

In the interest of being honest – which I’ve repeated ad nauseum up until High Stakes how much I value – the recent events can only be described as an abject failure. My failure.

I’m not just talking about losing a match here. I never went into that match banging on about how I’m going to throw everybody in there out and finally fulfil my destiny. That particular raw egg is all over the face of the likes of Chris Page.

All together now: Fuck Chris Page.

Let me be clear here though, I’m not upset about losing that match. I’m upset about who[i] won.

Chris’s single-minded focus on himself led to the worst possible outcome: Thaddeus Duke won.

Chris actually threw me out of that ring, but I’m not even mad at him for it. I’ll tell him to go fuck himself every day of the week, and twice on Sundays, but that’s because he’s a gigantic piece of burnt shit, NOT because he threw me over the rope in a match. The camera may not follow me like one of the [i]favourites – I mean, shit, the first cut of the event didn’t even air my interview with Steve Sayors – but after I dusted myself off at ringside, I walked out of the arena of my own volition. Chris didn’t do any damage to me whatsoever in that match. But he picked his moment. And for that? I applaud him. Finally, Chris lives up to his slimy, opportunistic name. He owned it. To that, Chris, I salute you!

But unfortunately, somewhere in that damaged brain of his, he became convinced him that he could do the impossible! That he could win. He was never going to be good enough. And now…

Now I’m doomed.

It was the worst possible outcome for me and my kin.

For that… I do blame Chris. Chris Page is a dumbass.

I told everyone that I believed Thaddeus Duke was talented. I told everyone that I believed he would be the Universal Champion one day. I never once said that about Chris Page. Because Chris Page is not talented, and Chris Page will never be the Universal Champion. His single-cell single-mind got all caught up in ego, and he took his eye off the prize. He allowed the villain to win.

Let me give you a Thaddeus Duke quote to remember. October 20, 2020: ‘It’s all about me.’

That must be so comforting for his friends to hear, right?

And if his friends are uncomfortable, imagine how it feels to be the guy who he called irrelevant; the guy who he said was out of touch with reality; the guy who he called a fucking cancer. All about him? What does that mean for the people who disagree with him?

I fucking know what it means.

Torment.

Harassment.

Degradation.

Thaddeus Duke uses his platform to put himself above all others while he rants and he raves about how he’s a super duper blue chipper hero and he makes someone like me out to be some sort of a lunatic psychotic freak! All for me having the gall – the fucking gall – to question whether he belongs at the top of the mountain right now. That’s all it takes to make me the bad guy in his eyes. I disagreed with him. And now he has a bigger platform than ever to shame and insult me.

Do you think being me is fucking EASY?!?!

Well let me give you fuckers another Thaddeus Duke quote to remember. Same damn date, October 20, 2020: ‘Battle royals are a crapshoot and have never been about who is better’.

I have no doubt he’ll stick by that quote today. After all, he has stuck by it for the past two months and I have the utmost faith in Thad’s inability to change. But if he’s got the gold and hasn’t proven he’s the best – his words, remember? – and he won’t be defending against a worthy contender in his first defence – again, his words! – then what’s the fucking celebration for? Why is Pip Collins exclaiming we finally have a champion that we can be proud of?

…

…

…

There is no good answer, friends. This whole system is broken. But that… that’s not on Thad. That’s on the people that encourage and allow him to be such an individualistic cunt. One more time – his words: it’s all about him, remember?

We can pin some of these issues on management. We can ‘stick it to the man’ like that if we really want to, but it goes further than that. This broken world wouldn’t work if people didn’t accept it. Or if people didn’t work from within to enforce the status quo. I’m talking about the people who benefit from it. The people work through individualistic cunts like Thad. The people who make a habit of moving around others to achieve their ends. The people who lay brutal, deliberate punches into my poor, poor skull, over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. The people seemingly pick me out from the line up and go out of their way to make sure I can’t hurt their precious little baby.

The people who enable the people like Thad.

…

…

…

Louis.”

1C: The Path

As the rock hurtles, danger lurks.

The force of the void draws together in the shape of a dark, evil raven.

Its energy quivers, matter transfiguring.

Solid.

Liquid.

Gas.

Plasma.

The raven’s wings flap in transition as the rock speeds towards it.

The raven screeches in silence.

The rock ponders its move. Can it continue? What of the path?

Its path had never altered before.

What of destiny?

What of legacy?

What of the raven?

The raven swoops.

The core of the rock grips tight to its rugged shield, as it swerves at the last second.

It’s too late.

With a vibrating surge, the rock is overwhelmed. Its core shakes. The raven consumes and digests it. It casts it out!

~~~

The man tosses in his sleep.

~~~

The rock survives.

But what remains?

Twisting and tumbling, it struggles to understand its new reality. A blip? A stumbling block? A massacre?

A new path.

Still scuttling through the void, the rock has yet to regain control over its movement.

The new path takes over.

It sweeps the rock straight towards a field of others.

Other rocks.

Younger.

Stronger.

Faster.

Though it can see the hazards up ahead, it cannot alter course. The raven’s effects have been enduring.

Crash.

The rock rattles. Its core clutches at its shell.

Crash.

Its grip loosens. Desperately, it tries to regain control.

Crash.

It fails. The collision dislodges the shell from its grasp. It cracks, and with each jolt the core ricochets against its former armour. Each impact is more severe than the last. The crack widens. The core shakes lose.

Emerging into the void, the core is exposed – unprotected.

Crash.

The damage continues.

Laid bare for all to see, the rock is beaten and battered.

It bends.

It breaks.

Its pieces scatter. Some, like the shell, are returned to the nothing, smashed over and over by the other rocks until time reclaims them. Other pieces adapt to their new environment. They join the horde and become them.

What’s left of the rock flees.

The celestial tide washes the rock out on the other side, scarred but alive.

Behind it, its foes continue their perpetual wars.

Other fragments also find their way. The rock rights itself and tries to will itself towards them.

It gathers every force it can muster and unleashes!

It can’t reach them.

~~~

The man lurches up from his bed.

~~~

The rock drifts further and further from its totality.

Meekly, it accepts its new path.

In eternity’s shimmer, it sees its own reflection. It no longer recognises itself. It is incomplete.

For a decade it travels through the dark alone.

Forward. Ever forward.

And then… new clusters.

Kings of space and time.

An apex.

Then… a cataclysm.

The rock slows, settling into its new reality.

It no longer has the universe at its feet.

It is not what it once was.

It just is.

~~~

Rubbing sleep from his eyes, the man rises, allowing the blanket to fall haphazardly to his feet. Sluggishly he stumbles towards the door, pausing to scratch himself on the strike plate of the frame. His bare feet patter across the off-white tiles of the bathroom floor. With a rustle, he lowers his pants and relieves himself into the toilet bowl. With a cascading splash, the urine directly hits the water. He sighs as a shiver runs up his spine when he nears empty. He ignores it, shakes away the last drops, and pulls his pants back up. Thwap. The elastic snaps back into place. Pulling the string cord on the toilet, the gurgling flush masks a couple of hoarse coughs. He spits into the sink and looks up to the mirror.

He sees his left hand.

[Image: p2FlN0R.jpg]

Quickly he wipes it away and tries to forget it was ever there.

1D: Pieces

“I find it useful to decompress after a traumatic event like High Stakes. Talking about it is supposed to help.

Right, Doc?

But this talk of enablers… well, that’s a gorgeous wee transition to address The Baphomet, isn’t it? The man who I threw out of the battle royal.

I promise, I haven’t gone out of my way to make enemies here. With a few key exceptions like Thaddeus Duke, Chris Page, and Bobbie Bourbon, I’d like to think I’ve been rather cordial since my re-emergence in the XWF. I’ve extended olive branches to Marf Swaysons and Barney Green; I’ve become… acquainted… with Μια θεά; and I’ve even met my future husband in Corey S-W-O-O-N Smith.

Oh jenkies! I’m heating up just thinking about him.

Deep breaths, buddy, cum on.

I mean… sure… there is the small matter of that blonde-haired devil-fucking bitch who needs to burn, burn, BURN! FUCKING DIE!

But there’s plenty of time for that.

I’ve been out here trying to make all these new friends for the past few weeks, but Baphomet… you actually reached out to me. And I almost couldn’t believe it! People don’t usually do that. They cross the street to get away from me and they whisper behind my back. They call me names and they mock me. But you, Baphomet… you reached out. And I didn’t reciprocate.

I’m sorry.

Did you hear that?

I’m sorry.

I didn’t mean to upset you. Like I said, I wasn’t out here to make enemies. Especially not of you. I genuinely, honest-to-Non Denominational Deity, super-seriously considered your offer. You’re here for a revolution, right? Black and bloody. Well I am into it, big guy. And I know why you tagged me to join you. We see the same thing when we look up and down the XWF roster. We see the violence and the inherent hypocrisy that lies within their ‘heroes’. You see it in Thaddeus Duke, just like I do. And that… that made for a very tempting offer. But alas, I couldn’t follow you into the dark.

Because it’s your dark. Not mine.

I see you rallying the empty and the vacant around you – the fragile ones. Those with something missing. Ash Quinn and Lycana are just the start. I’m sure there’ll be more. And you saw that I have something missing too.

But you don’t have it.

You don’t have what I’m looking for.

My missing pieces.

I’m not looking to accept the darkness. I just want people to accept reality. I want people to recognise the world for what it truly is. I want children to have honest role models, who don’t talk out of the sides of their mouths. I want those very role models to be upfront out their intentions: people who don’t have to pretend their such a great guy when in reality they are monsters.

Baph’, I want people to be comfortable being their true selves.

I want a world where it’s okay for Ash Quinn to be a plucky underdog.

I want a world where it’s okay for Lycana to… I don’t know… fuck a wolf or something?

I want a world where people like me are allowed to exist without people like you preying upon us.

That’s happened all my life, man. In these rare moments of lucidity that I get, I have fleeting memories I’ve what I’ve lost. I remember those pieces of stone that were chipped away from me by the liars, frauds, and fiends. Those pieces are out there somewhere!

But you. Don’t. Fucking. Have them.

Those missing pieces… that’s what made you think I would follow you. That’s what made you think I would raise my Left Hand. That’s what made you think I was vulnerable. Let’s be real, here, Baph’. That’s what you saw, right? Vulnerability? A poor sap, just like Ash, just like Lycana, who you thought you could bend; who you thought you could break like some fucking animal. But you didn’t count on me already being broken. Shit, you didn’t count on me knowing that I was broken.

That’s the piece that you were missing.

I know what I am! I know that the next time I speak, I might not be as angry at you as I am right now. I might not be as fearful of Thaddeus Duke. But whichever shade of blue colours my iris, I’ll still know what you are.

You’re a scavenger.

A hyena.

When you come out at dark, you’re not there to hunt. You’re there to pick up the pieces after the real predators have had their fill. And like a hyena, your strength comes from numbers. But you don’t have them yet. Not enough to threaten humanity. And rest assured, that’s what I am in this analogy. A person, standing at the edge of the village, with a gun in my fucking hands. And gun beats beast.

But like Thad, I’m an individualistic cunt too. The difference between he and I, is that I own it. I’m trying to protect myself from his world. I will defend me and mine from the people like him. And from the people like you.

You can take the rest of them, Baph’! You can burn this whole motherfucking thing to the ground. It deserves it.

But. You can’t. Have. Me.

I will not let myself be used and abused for your agenda. Even if I see merit in it. I just can’t let my self-determination, for whatever worth it has left, be stripped away from me again.

As I said, man, I’m sorry for rejecting you. I’m sorry for the way that I did it too. It wasn’t meant as mockery, though in hindsight, I can see how it could be taken that way. But it wasn’t meant to be that way.

It was defiance.

It’s just… sometimes… sometimes my wires get crossed, you know? Sometimes I lose track of how to communicate properly. I’m honestly ashamed I didn’t just use my words. But would words have been enough to ward you off? I’m kind of doubtful.

What I do know, is that you’ve misread the room. Not all darkness is created the same. I’m not looking to spread my darkness, so I’m sure as hell not wanting to spread yours.

And I can’t let you force me.

So now it’s come to this: First Blood. My first singles match in a decade, and it’s not about beating somebody, it’s about harming them.

Did you ask for this?

Is this what you fucking want?

To make me bleed?

Is this your idea of punishment for a perceived slight, or do you actually think that this will convince me to come around to your side? Either way, it won’t work. I won’t learn my ‘lesson’ and I won’t fall into line.

Because I won’t bleed.

You will.”

1E: Direction

The man stands upon the rock.

One, but incomplete.

Amongst the twinkling stars above, a small speck of orange pierces the dark. The Earth itself reaches out and catches the rocky fragment, drawing it in.

The flames grow larger.

The man gazes up and smiles as the meteor streaks across the sky and rockets out of his view.

“I’ll be whole”.

The flare continues.

Far beyond his line of sight, the Wisconsin winter douses the flames in an explosion of mud and sleet.

Within the crater, just outside of Green Bay, a treasure is ready to be found.

A piece.

“I just need to follow the path.”

That winding path to completion.

The Salmon-Coloured Minotaur handed him a map. On it, was written the next stop:

Venice, Italy.

“Huh… the path really is winding.”

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